Rally Makes Consolidation Case

Gov. Mike Huckabee called the shameful use (at taxpayer expense) of innocent children as political props outside the Capitol in early December “a rally to preserve the past.” Actually, it was a rally to preserve the present, which is bad enough to be declared unconstitutional. But let’s allow participants in that rally to speak for themselves:

“I’m here to save our schools. I want to stay in little schools. I don’t want to go to no big ones. You get more violence at a big school. You ain’t got as many people to watch over you and see what you’re doing. At a small school, they can see what you’re doing and watch you closely.”

This from a 17-year-old junior from Parkers Chapel, one of the nine school districts taxpayers support in Union County. This young man said his trip to the Capitol was a field trip, the goal of which was to teach him that “it shouldn’t be right for us to go to big schools and that small schools are better.”

Here’s hoping the rest of Parkers Chapel curriculum is at least as preparatory.

Next, let’s hear from Leland Suhrnan, the former mayor of Gillett (Arkansas County), who seemed to have everything except education on his mind as he rallied to preserve teeny-tiny schools:

“It’s our whole community … because if our children move or are bused away, then teachers won’t have a job there. So it’s going to affect our businesses, our bank. It’s going to affect everything. Our service stations, everything in our community is going to be affected.

“It might even affect the economy of the Delta, moving all these people to different locations.”

Suhrnan’s comments were refreshing: How often do you hear anyone eager to preserve the current state of the Delta economy?

And James Johnson, the grandfather of three students at the 117-student Carthage School District in Dallas County, said:

“It’s going to be up to the individual. We had a lady who graduated from Carthage High back in the 1980s and now she’s going for her law degree.”

Imagine that: A girl who graduated from Carthage High School at least 14 years ago is now going to law school. Of course, if she got her undergraduate degree in Arkansas, the chances that she had to take remedial courses are approximately 100 percent, based on the job Carthage has done with its most recent graduating classes.

Yes, the small-school defenders make a strong argument. It’s just not the case they intended to make.